Unsung Songs of 2009

It's nice to imagine that each year's music represents a unique slice of history, as if we might be able to point to 2009, for example, and rattle off a list of things that had never happened before, things that would never happen again (at least not for the first time), and game changing moments. The problem is, step back just a little bit from the canvas to let the details blur ever so slightly, and every year suddenly looks similar. 2009 saw some tragic losses and some surprise comebacks. The biggest trends wore out their welcome quickly. Plenty of artists repeated everything that had worked for them in the past with varying degrees of success, but a few tried to do something different from their norm, not always creating something great, but almost always creating something interesting. All that sums up pretty much every year of music. Not that this is a bad thing. As the saying goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. The way that the broad, sweeping trends never change is actually kind of comforting.

Just as in every other year, 2009 saw some big hits that did everything right and earned all of their acclaim, and it saw plenty more bland, mediocre songs that rose to the top on the strength of clever marketing, inescapable ubiquity, or sheer bland inoffensiveness. There were even a number of big hits that could only have earned that spot if someone sold their soul in exchange a top chart position for just a few weeks. And, as always, there were innumerable great tunes that simply fell through the cracks - songs that could have been amongst the biggest singles of the year if only the chips had fallen slightly differently. Perhaps if they had been featured in one extra movie or commercial, or if they hadn't been released the same week as a hotly anticipated album, they might have hit it big, but circumstances have left them as also-rans for the year in music.

I don't mean to pretend that these fifteen tracks are the best of the songs that you may have overlooked these years - there's far too much that I haven't heard myself from this year to create any sort of definitive list. But these fifteen tracks are songs that did have everything they needed except luck to be amongst the top hits of the year. Check 'em out if any of them slipped by for you.

I Love Pop Music by Ben Lee

Ben Lee's 2009 album Rebirth of Venus left me feeling pretty disappointed, but there were a few bright spots, including this celebratory hymn to the sweet, simple joys of pop music. Despite the bright, shiny pop hooks woven into the music, the verses are actually rather depressing, as the catalogue all of the big-picture problems of the world today. The chorus, though, helps that all to melt away as it encourages us to turn up the radio and lose ourselves in its simple bliss.

♬ I love pop music, this is how we do it
it's politics you can romance to
I love pop music, sprinkle sugar through it
philosophy that you can dance to ♬


Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out With Me by Cracker

Each year brings plenty of surprises, and one of them for 2009 was that 90's alt-rockers Cracker were still together and making music. Their Sunrise in the Land of Milk and Honey had a handful of worthwhile gems, but none resonated as well with me as this throwback to the Gen-X slacker culture of the band's heyday fifteen years ago. With its warm, resonant guitars, its laid-back, ambling pace, and its lyrical mixture of world-weariness and relaxed contentment, the song is a fantastic reminder that everything can still be okay if we slow down and stop worrying so much.

♬ well I'm not paranoid
there is no conspiracy
but I swear big brother's watching over me
turn on, tune in, drop out, give up with me ♬

The Great Defector by Bell X1

Scottland's Bell X1 seemed to be doing their best to build a bridge from 2009 all the way back to the mid-80's with this song. The synth riffs that open the song and run throughout the background sound like the soundtrack to an early game on the original Nintendo Entertainment System, and the vocals, particularly in the chorus, mimic David Byrne's geeky nervous energy and frenetic joy from the late-career Talking Heads albums. Through it all, the clean, crisp hooks dig in deep, demanding the we all party like it's 1985.

♬ I am the great defector
so I must affect an air
of a man who's seen too much
but still just manages to care ♬

Sugarfoot by Black Joe Louis and the Honeybears

The last few years saw plenty of retro-soul artists and groups, but venture beyond the sultry, seductive chanteuse style of retro-soul a la Sharon Jones or Duffy, and it feel tricky to find something to immediately connect with. Steer yourself towards Black Joe Louis, though, and you're bound to be hooked instantly. Louis's debut album is pure distilled essence of funk and soul, and Sugarfoot is the best example of what the band can do. Bouncy bass grooves, sharp horn fills, and some frantic call-and-response vocal work in the vein of James Brown make all help the song to capture every memory you've ever had of block parties on a hot summer night.

♬ yeah, where my horns at?
ya'll with me? (yeah!)
ya'll with me? (yeah!)
ya'll ready? (yeah!) ♬


Airstream Driver by Gomez

Gomez album A New Tide was, overall, a little too laid-back and sedate for me, but the album's lead single, Airstream Driver nonetheless sparkled with all the energy that I was looking for. From the resonant chimes of the opening guitar chords ringing out their clarion call to the rolling tom-tom drum rhythms to the funky squawks of the synths that join in after the middle of the song to the dreamy, stream-of-consciousness vocals, it's a perfect piece of pop craftsmanship. Building to a loud, cacophonous collage of sound at the end, this is a normally sedate band letting loose and shooting for something epic worth hearing.

♬ she shoots but never misses
stare down the passing traffic
go carefully carefully
oh, airstream driver ♬


Kiss with a Fist by Florence and the Machine

Domestic violence isn't the sort of subject most people would expect for a cheeky, high energy piece of spirited pop, but that doesn't stop Florence Welch and her band from using it as a starting place for this rockingly infectious number. Amongst the garagey guitar jangle, punk-fueled solos, and pub rock drum stomp, Welch's sultry vocals with a seductive charm that almost, but not quite, disguises the dark subject matter that stands so starkly in contrast with the song's bouncy energy.

♬ you hit me once, I hit you back
you give a kick, I gave a slap
you smash a plate over my head
and I set fire to our bed ♬


Percussion Gun by White Rabbits

Rock and roll tradition dictates that the drummer is supposed to stay confined to the background save for the occasion flourishing fill (Iron Butterfly's Jack Pinney being the most notable exception). With the word "percussion" placed so prominently in the song title, it's no surprise that the opening track from White Rabbits' It's Frightening is set to deft tradition. The arrangement puts the thumping rhythms of the band's two drummers right in front of the mix where the lead instruments are supposed to go, crowding aside the guitars and even the vocals to reduce them to little more than supporting instruments. It's a refreshingly daring inversion that few rock groups would risk these days.

♬ well take it from me
what else could you do?
and where do you get off?
and how can I get there, too? ♬


Fel del av Gården by Movits!

Artists who try to throw a disparate mixture of styles into a crucible with the hope of creating alchemical gold can easily end up falling flat. If you expect that two or more musical ideas are likely to clash discordantly, you're probably right. And yet, Sweden's Movits! managed to mix hip hop with gypsy jazz and swing sounds and not sound like a musical train wreck. With it's foundation of banjo, accordion, and horns underneath its Swedish lyrical flow, Movits!'s music is filled with inescapably tight hooks.

♬ kommer från del del av gården
från andra sidan sp♬ret
jag växte upp med zigenare och romer
som spela handklaver
o ville spå mig ♬


Buster Voodoo by Roderigo y Gabriela

When heavy metal guitarists pick up acoustic instruments, it usually means that we're in for cheesy unplugged versions of their usual fare. But when Mexican heavy metalists Rodrigo Sanchez and Gabriela Quintero traded in their metal axes for traditional flamenco guitars, they created something uniquely intense that demands to be listened to. Even though Buster Voodoo, inspired by the music of Jimi Hendix, is an entirely instrumental track featuring nothing more than two nylon string guitars, it feature more than its fair share of shredding riffs, percussive stomps, wah-wah fills, and sheer sonic aggression. It's much more of a high octane thrill ride than any acoustic song has a right to be.

♬ ... ♬


The Horizon Is a Beltway by The Low Anthem

In these days of auto tune and pro tools, it can be hard to remember the visceral delights of raw, unpolished music. When we do find that rough sound, though it's both surprising and refreshing. The Low Anthem's The Horizon Is a Beltway is by no means a "pretty" song - raspy, shouted vocals mix with simplistically chugging resonator guitar rhythms and wailing harmonica chords in a half-drunken party reverie. Drawing from the best americana traditions of gospel and folk, though, the band celebrates their dirty, gritty sound and treats it with enough enthusiastic exuberance to make it all sparkle with beauty.

♬ this old house stood empty for fifteen years or more
windows fall halfway to meet the weeds upon the floor
time throws up her curtain and we know not who what for
the horizon is a beltway, the skyway is on fire ♬


Heartbeat Radio by Sondre Lerche

The trend of musicians bemoaning the state of modern-day radio in song has been around, well, pretty much as long a radio has been playing music, and it's not a trend that'll go away any time soon. Norway's Sondre Lerche is just the latest in the long line of musicians to take the deejays to task, but few have done it with as much melodious charm as he's done with Heartbeat Radio. Sweeping string and syncopated acoustic guitar rhythms form a fine, AM gold-sounding backdrop for Lerche's jazz pop vocals full of enough colorful metaphor and charismatic charm. It almost sounds more like a wistful throwback to a yesteryear that never existed than the bitter criticism of today's trends that it really is.

♬ tell me what's the deal with the static
FM has become automatic
I wanna know, did the DJ drown
in a sea of reverb and compression
wait 'til you hear the refrain
on my heartbeat radio ♬


40 Dogs (Like Romeo and Juliet) by Bob Schneider

The lush, mid-tempo guitar grooves of the first single from Bob Schneider's album Lovely Creatures sound like something that could have come from any of a number of sensitive male singer-songwriter types from recent years. There are echoes of John Mayer, Duncan Sheik, Shawn Mullins, Paolo Nutini, and plenty more on display. But Schneider sets himself apart with the ambitious lyrical scope of the song. The words are crammed in densely to the point where Schneider has to half-speak the verses to get everything out, but it affords him the opportunity for some truly inventive and memorable wordplay.

♬ we'll you're the color of a burning book
you're the color of a sideways look from an undercover cop in a comic book
you're the color of a storm in June
you’re the color of the night, that's right
color of a fight - you move me
you're the color of the colored part of the Wizard of Oz movie ♬


Say Please by Monsters of Folk

Gone are the days when the term "supergroup" was a guarantee of instant interest in a musical project. Monsters of folk certainly counts as one such group, but few people are familiar with more than one of the names Jim James, Conor Oberst, Mike Mogis, and M. Ward, and so few people amongst the general music listening public took notice of the group. Shame really, since their song Say Please outdoes itself on every element of the indie rock scale. Rich, meaty harmonies, wonderfully reverb drenched acoustic and electric guitar riffs, gritty solo work that adds a decorative flourish without detracting from the song as a whole. It's the kind of song that advertisers the people who find soundtracks for television and movie montage scenes should have been clamoring for, but for some reason didn't.

♬ everyone grows old on the gold coast
it takes a lot of hope to grieve
everyone gets dark and the worst part is
the way those thoughts can please you ♬


People Got a Lotta Nerve by Neko Case

One of the most striking tracks off of alt-country darling Neko Case's Middle Cyclone is also the kind of song that people are bound to know by an incorrect title. If you've heard the song, it's entirely understandable to assume that it's called Maneater, considering how often the word is repeated in the chorus. Perhaps the actual title (which doesn’t even appear anywhere in the lyrics) was chosen to avoid any confusion with the old Hall and Oates tune. Whatever the reason, the jangly guitar, the country-rock riffs, and the frank, sometimes graphic lyrics of life-and-death struggles (contrasting quite effectively with Case's beautiful voice) make the song really stand out from the pack.

♬ but I'm a man-man-man
man-man-maneater
but still you're surprised-prised-prised
when I eat ya ♬


All the Pretty Girls by fun.

Of all the new songs I heard from 2009, none grabbed me as tightly as fun.'s All the Pretty Girls. I may be a little biased, since I have a soft spot for any song that makes an attempt to mimic the distinctive production sound of Jeff Lynne's Electric Light Orchestra work, but there's no denying that power pop is still alive and kicking when we hear this tune. Every touch blends together perfectly - the vocal overdubs layered thickly atop one another, the punchy guitar licks that jump out of the speakers, the sweeping orchestral arrangement that backs the chorus, the harmonic vocals that echo each line of the second verse, that sublime moment when all of the instruments drop out and leave us with just handclaps behind the vocals for a few bars, and so much more. Nothing from the past year sparkled quite as brightly as this one did.

♬ all the pretty girls on a Saturday night
let it be, and come to me with the look in your eyes
will you break and take all the words from my mouth?
I wish all the pretty girls were shaking me down ♬